The Body

Few people seem to use the word for their whole physical organism. “I have a body” is more common than “I am a body.” We speak of “my” legs as we speak of “my” clothes, and “I” seems to remain intact even if the legs are amputated. We say, “I speak, I walk, I think, and (even) I breathe.” But we do not say, “I shape my bones, I grow my nails, and I

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We are familiar from existential phenomenology with the claim that my body is not something I “have,” but something I “am.” What I am suggesting here, however, is that my body is something I do (cf. Ames, 1984, p. 48). And if we ask “who” does this, the answer is not a punctiformal ego with its body over-against it, but rather a dilated... See more